ABOUT BEARS by Ralph Bice
From Wednesday, May 24, 1978
Talk turned to bears. Over the last few years when so many have watched black bears at local garbage dumps they appear clumsy rooting through discarded garbage and people are forgetting they can be very dangerous and for no reason. We watch outdoor T.V. shows where bears are treated like a family pet. People tend to forget wild animals are very unpredictable.
The record of people being molested, even killed by bears, is very rare considering the number of bears that are around and the opportunity that bears could attack persons if they desired. There was a local story last year about a man who had to climb a tree to get away from a bear. He showed claw marks on his leg to prove his story. Then the story of the boy near Wawa who was carried away by a mother bear but his mom grabbed a rifle and shot the bear.
The first trip I made in Algonquin Park as a guide was in August 1917. We went by way of Opeongo Lake which then was considered away back in the woods. We ate lunch at the end of the portage coming from Happy Isle Lake (then called Green Lake) and one of the older guides (there were four guides) showed the pile of rotten logs which he told us had once been where a man who then lived on Opeongo had had a bear trap. (see Dennison’s Bridge on this website)
Before the park had been established there had been a good sized clearing on that lake and a family named Dennison had farmed there. The story he told was that one evening the grandfather and a boy of nine or ten paddled the six miles up the lake to check the bear trap. The trap was gone and as the old man stepped over a log he stepped right on a very large bear caught in the trap. In seconds the trapper realized that he was going to be killed and shouted to the boy to go back to the farm for help. The story had it that the boy paddled the six miles back to the farm but when he got back to the trap the old man was dead. To make it sound good we were told that the animal only had one front foot and it was caught in the trap so the bear could claw with his hind feet.
The man was buried on a nice side hill facing south looking over that very beautiful lake. I visited the grave several times in later years. I knew a grandson of the man who reputedly was killed and then one winter met the son, then quite an elderly man. He had known my grandfather and we had a nice visit. He told me so many things about living there before it was a park. About the game and the fifty-two pound trout he caught in a net. But he would not talk about the bear incident.
I have seen a number of bears in traps and they would not be lying down. And surely he must have had a rifle of some sort. The boy who was with the older man was later shot accidentally when pulling a rifle off a sled at the foot of Annie’s Bay, which is the lower end of Opeongo Lake. So while I have found some discrepancies in the original story it is part of the legend of Algonquin Park and adds a bit of mystery.
When the Highland Inn was operated by the C.N.R. and served by the R.R. years before the road was built bears came around the kitchen almost every night after things had quieted down. They were stoned and chased and never once do I remember a bear showing any fight. Later, there was a dumping area set aside, and a trip to see the bears was an attraction. I do not recall any trouble. Some years there seems to be more than the usual number of bears in some areas and some years hardly any bears are seen.
Some years there would be heavy crops of blueberries and other wild fruit. Since fires have been controlled there are fewer areas where these berries can supply much food for bears. And they are always hungry.
When we had a camp every summer on Eagle Lake (Butt) we sometimes had a lot of bother from these intruders. I can recall one summer when they went right into tents for food. But no people were bothered. One spring we had a young bear that would get on the table and we had to destroy that bear. Another time a bear was so bold that the tent could not be left unguarded. This bear, as well, we had to get rid of. But never did one show any sign of attacking a human, even when we had to chase them away from the tent.
Only once have I ever seen a bear show any belligerence. One evening, perhaps forty years ago, I guided a man who was interested in picture taking. We knew from signs we had seen that they were feeding in this quite large blueberry patch which was close to this small lake. We were in a canoe and saw perhaps ten bears. Some ran a short distance when we got too close, some just walked away, then turned and watched. One or two we paddled close to and got pictures. Then we saw one very large bear and paddled in his direction. He did not like to have his supper disturbed, stood up and did some growling. Then as we got closer to shore, perhaps fifty feet from the bear, he came right toward us, stood up at the shore and showed his teeth. We hastily backed away but if he had wanted two jumps would have put him in the canoe before we could have moved.